


Return Of The Fathers

by DictionaryWrites



Series: Dads Descend [1]
Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Catharsis, Complicated Relationships, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Father Figures, Fatherhood, Friendship, Ghosts, Humor, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Magic, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Multiple, Parent-Child Relationship, Past Child Abuse, Plot, Repression, Spells & Enchantments
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-16
Updated: 2019-04-23
Packaged: 2020-01-14 20:51:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18484126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DictionaryWrites/pseuds/DictionaryWrites
Summary: A strange spell comes upon Ankh-Morpork...And for just a while, the world is wildly different.





	1. Prologue

Everybody has a father, who gives you half of that which you are.

Depending on the card you’ve drawn, this is either a curse or a blessing.

**♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔**

Jasper had been having a bad, bad night. He’d bet on the wrong dog in the dog-fighting, and then again, on a different dog again. Damned things could never be trusted to fight properly, once you were relying on them…

And then had come the poker.

It wasn't that Jasper wasn't good at poker: he was. He had a right good head for numbers, and he was good at keeping rough track of the cards around the table, knowing his odds: he didn't understand fighting dogs or cocks, didn't understand racehorses or racing pigeons, but he knew people. He knew their little tells, and he could keep a mean poker face.

The problem was that he played too long every night, got prideful, got caught up in his own winnings until he lost them all.

He was, at heart, a prideful man. Like many prideful men informed that they were prideful, he became incredibly angry and defensive, for one of the things a prideful man is most proud of is usually the extent of his humility.

A man had called him prideful tonight.

He walked slightly unsteadily as he made his way home. A large, beefy man as he was, very nearly six feet tall and with shoulders like a cart horse, no one bothered him in his promenade, even noting how he occasionally stumbled, and noting the bottle of Lughaven Dark Ale he clasped in his hand.

He was angry.

He didn't show it, of course. Jasper was a very angry man, but it did not pay to show that sort of thing. As a grocer, people preferred to think of him as genial and jolly, and so genial and jolly was what he was. He laughed and he remembered the order of every one of his regular customers, of which there were many; he bantered with his suppliers, and sent the best of them Hogswatch cards, receiving hampers for the family in return; he resisted the - in his mind, quite natural - urge to give cats and dogs a swift kick, and gently patted them instead; despite having - again, a quite natural - aversion to children, he gave them sweets and titbits, and beamed at them when they came in to pick something up for their parents.

He did not like children. He’d never been convinced of their merits, and hated the sound they made. People often remarked to Jasper, in a very casual, idly contented way, what a nice sound children made when they were playing. Jasper didn't take up this opinion at all. The loud screech and high-pitched laughter of children in the streets cut to the very core of his soul and jumped up and down on it, as messy children, disobedient and undisciplined, were wont to do. And when they screamed…

By the gods, but when they screamed, he wanted to break something. _His_ children, distasteful as they were, never screamed, even when he gave them a damned reason to. This was because, in Jasper’s mind, they had been _raised right_. To be _raised right_ was a very nebulous thing, to which every father had a different definition.

Most would have blanched at hearing Jasper’s.

With the strange way of Ankh-Morpork’s funny streets, the Grocer’s, as many businesses did, had an apartment atop it. The Grocer’s was on Whistler Street, which paralleled Ganymead[1] Lane: due to a funny dip on the junction that adjoined the two streets, though, Ganymead Lane was a full storey above Whistler Street, and subsequently one entered the first floor flat as if it were on the ground floor.

He opened the front door with all the delicacy of a drunken man, which was to say, none at all. It clattered as the door knob smacked against the door, and when he closed it, it was more like a slam than a click. He stumbled through their kitchen, into the corridor, and threw open the door of the bedroom.

“Miriam,” he said, his voice hoarse with ale.

His wife didn’t stir. She was sprawled on the mattress, one of her arms hanging loosely down from the side of the bed. Miriam, whose maiden name had been Mallowmint, beaten down as she was had adapted a particular strategy for avoiding her husband’s drunken temper of an evening, and for blinding and deafening herself to the protest of her children when he turned on them instead. She drank herself into a stupor.

There was no fun – and certainly no satisfaction – in taking one’s temper out on somebody who was unconscious.

Jasper turned his on his heel, and he moved laboriously up the stairs, which creaked beneath his weight. He dropped the bottle on the way up, and it smashed behind him, but he scarcely noticed it: he was angry, and now, behind the closed doors of his own home, he could be as angry as he liked, and no one was to stop him.

He shoved open the door to the children’s attic bedroom, feeling an extra shot of fury that it should be closed, when he wanted to pass through it.

It was a small, square room: a door on the far side led to an extra store room, which was going to be another children’s bedroom, once upon a time. There were two beds in the room, set into big wooden cabinets, like they did on some boats: the boy slept on the left, and the girl on the right.

The girl, who had turned to face the wall, was going to be fourteen next month. Nearly a woman, now, but she didn’t act like one: she was trying to be quiet, snivelling little bitch that she was, but Jasper could see her shoulders shaking, hear the soft, sharp gasps as she let out pathetic little sobs. He turned to the other bed, where the boy was, for all appearances, fast asleep. His breathing was even and slow, the sheets tangled around his feet like they always ended up, and Jasper could see the purpling bruise on his eye from a few nights back. The yellow bits caught the dim light from the window.

Jasper took a step forward.

The boy was on his feet in a moment, standing to face his father, between him and the other bed.

Jasper grinned.

The boy wasn’t crying. He never cried – Jasper wasn’t sure if he even cried when he was a baby, he’d been quiet even then. His chin was as high as it could go, which wasn’t far, because even for a boy of eight, he was very small indeed. Not _thin –_ he was a grocer’s son, and he certainly wasn’t _thin_ – but he was a little boy, all fury and unsuspecting strength packed into a compact form.

If he did some sport, instead of fagging about in libraries all day, maybe he wouldn’t be _quite_ so small.

“You should go to bed,” he said quietly. He had learned, almost as soon as he had learned to speak, that it was good to use a quiet voice with his father, and now approaching nine years old, he couldn’t really bear to speak in an especially loud voice unless he was in a brawl with some of the other boy in the street[2]. These things stick.

“Don’t you tell me what I should or shouldn’t do, you little bastard,” Jasper said. “Get out of the way.”

“You disgust me,” the boy said softly, in a voice like a straight razor: quick, vicious, and yet controlled. “When you die, Jasper, I don’t believe any man in the city will truly mourn your passing[3]. Do you know that?” He often spoke like this. It was all them damned books he read, and hanging about the wizards at the university. Jasper rarely remembered the specifics come morning, but it certainly pissed him off in the moment, and he swung out wildly: the boy deftly side-stepped him, but drew him to the side, and away from his sister’s bed.

He was five years younger than she was, and half her size: in every other way, he was her big brother, irrevocably, and completely.

Jasper did land the next punch, and the boy didn’t cry out in pain, because he was better than that. He gritted his teeth, grunted, and that was all, until the kick landed, and then he gasped instead.

**♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔**

Two nights later, Jasper bet once more on the wrong horse. He got uppity with the bookies, in a most inadvisable fashion. On his customary walk home, he walked home with two friends behind him, following him in the shadows.

He did not have time to scream when he fell on the doorstep of his household. No one heard the men rifle through his pockets, leave his cheap, scuffed watch, and take his wallet. No one noticed them from the street, nor noticed the body after they shut the gate behind them.

Miriam Drumknott slept in her usual stupor in their bed, safe.

The children, Wendy and Rufus, slept their night through, unharried.

When the boy, who woke at five o’clock sharp every morning, opened the door to allow some air into the kitchen while he stood on a stool to cook eggs for himself, as he would later cook for his mother[4], he was somewhat surprised to note the corpse on their doorstep. There was a little yard around the back of the house, just enough to shove a few bits and pieces, with a fence – and enough to obscure the view. His father’s brains had leaked prodigiously down the back of his neck, a soupy mess that soaked into his shirt, and his eyes stared forward, wide and unseeing. Rufus looked down at him for a long, long moment, committing the sight to memory. Years later, even as the rest of the day faded into vague recollection, he would remember this detail quite vividly, and be glad.

Rufus went inside, neatly turned off the stove, and reached for his coat, drawing it onto his shoulders. Fastidiously – he was an extremely fastidious boy – he stepped out of the kitchen, leaving his mother abed for the time being, and locked the door behind him. Neatly, he stepped over Jasper Drumknott’s corpse, closed their yard’s gate, which had been ajar, and walked over to the Watchhouse.

With some disgust, he regarded the form of one Captain Sam Vimes, sprawled in one of the chairs, his hand clutched about a bottle of whiskey, and then said, “Sergeant Colon?” Vimes, utterly unconscious, did not stir.

“Oh,” said Fred Colon, who’d just been about to take off his helmet, so that he could walk home and go to bed. He did not especially like Rufus Drumknott, who was the son of a grocer in Dimwell, and he especially did not like to be faced with the boy in the early hours of the morning. He had a funny way about him, quiet and self-effacing and particular, and Fred often felt like he was looking right through him. Worse than that was the inescapable knowledge that young Drumknott was _certainly_ smarter than Fred Colon, and probably smarter than Fred and Nobby put together[5]. “Hello, Rufus, er… What’s this, then? Everything alright?”

“Oh, yes, Sergeant, very well, thank you,” Rufus said cheerfully, and he smiled at Fred, which Fred didn’t like, because young Rufus never usually smiled except for when he had one of the bigger lads pinned in the neighbourhood underneath him, and they seemed to be coming to the realisation that he could probably kill them, if the mood struck him. “Only that my father’s been murdered, sir, and I thought you might like to know.”

He delivered the happy news with a bright beam, and Fred Colon, who had regarded Jasper Drumknott as the friendly sort, good to have a pint with, funny, always gave Mrs Colon more on the scales than he needed to, was unnerved.

“Oh,” he said. “Right. Righto. Er… Right.”

He looked to the captain, who was quite unconscious.

“Alcohol,” Rufus said quietly. “Pathetic, isn’t it?”

Fred Colon was suddenly aware of his own breath, which probably smelt like the pints he and Nobby had gotten on the way back to the Watchhouse, and he coughed into his fist. “Er. Well. That is to say. _Nobby!_ Nobby!”

The absent-minded, cheerful smile on Rufus Drumknott’s face was not one that Fred wanted to face alone. He smiled like victory, and Fred wondered, just for a moment, if he’d killed his father himself. He never took it too far with the local boys, always threw them down and roughed them up, but never left them real injuries unless they were really asking for it, but…

But.

**♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔**

Fred Colon came home pale-faced and sick to his stomach. Mrs Lucinda Colon, who had been puzzling over the absence of her husband in the bed beside her when she’d woken up, looked to him.

“Fred?” she asked. “You alright?”

“Lucy,” Fred said, and to her surprise, he reached out and took her hands in his own, which were big and meaty, and he drew them up to his chest, kissing them with bitten-bruised lips. Lucinda looked up at her husband, her eyes wide. They didn’t usually speak much – even with children, and soon, grandchildren, with Fred working the night shift and her working the day shift, they almost never spoke. This kept the spark of romance alive.

Fred looked ready to drop dead, and Lucinda drew her husband to sit down at the kitchen table. Part of her wanted to be annoyed, that he should come in so late in the morning and disturb her bit of peace before she went off to work, but it… It was _hard_ to be annoyed, when Fred look quite so _shook_.

He was pasty, and white as chalk, and he swallowed three times before he looked at her and said, “Lucy, Jasper Drumknott, the grocer. He’s dead, got murdered last night.”

Lucinda gasped.

“But no, Lucy, that ain’t all, that’s not all at all, I… We handed it over to Day Watch, it’s their shift now anyway, but—”

He told her. She sat down in his lap, and they held one another’s hands, and they rested in silence for a long time.

“My da was never like that,” Fred said hoarsely. “Gave us a clip ‘round the ear, of course, but… Gods, Lucy, turns out Jasper was just as bad as old Sconner Nobbs, ‘cept nobody even knew!”

“Where is he?” Lucy asked. “The little boy, Rufus.”

“Went off to the Library, you know, how he likes to read at the University,” Fred said. “Went with a smile on his face, so he did.” Lucy exhaled, and her heart wrenched at the thought of it, of that odd little boy and his strange manners and ways, and how the girl, Wendy, always jumped and flustered if a cart went past too loud in the street, or if anybody slammed a door.

“Can I walk you to work, love?” Fred asked.

This was very bad indeed, if Fred was asking _that_. He hadn’t walked her to work in twelve years.

“Yes, love,” Lucy said, squeezing his hands. “’Course.”

**♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔**

At about the same time, on the other side of the city, a young man was dawdling in the Archaeologists’ Guild. His name was Montana[6] Evans, and he’d recently graduated from the Assassins’ Guild School. A rich boy of comfortable means, he felt himself somewhat stifled by the ease of his life at school.

The regular attempts at killing him were one thing – these things were par for the course amongst young students, and besides, they were all done in good fun. He wanted, he felt, _more_ from life.

He didn’t much like the idea of becoming an Assassin. Oh, there was excitement to be found in the difficult jobs, yes, but most jobs _weren’t_ that difficult, and really, what was the point? It was all so simple, so linear!

Killing a man…

That was boring.

Killing _monsters_ – real monsters, not this tawdry business of “monsters” who turn out to be greedy kings or what-have-you – rather sounded more appealing. Yes. Yes, he liked that idea quite a bit. With that said, though, he didn’t especially like the idea of becoming a barbarian or a warrior or what-have-you. It seemed so… so _crass_. You really had to go about quite undressed, in order to be a barbarian of any renown – even were you to wear furs, you couldn’t wear that much underneath.

But _archaeologists_ …

Archaeologists, they got to _adventure_ , and rush about, and go into tombs and what-not. They got to go in and… And have _fun_. He liked puzzles dreadfully, which was all that booby traps and complicated things were, anyway; and he didn’t think he was really interested in all this business about more essays and research and such forth, but he didn’t _have_ to do that bit, did he? He could just find the fun parts, and disarm the traps, and bring things back to Ankh-Morpork, and the archaeologists _here_ could all do the boring parts.

“Excuse me,” he said to the chap behind the desk. “How would one go about joining the guild?”

“Well,” said the clerk, glancing up at him. “First, you’d have to pick a very distinctive hat. And you’d need a whip.”

Montana considered this for a long moment, thoughtful. “What sort of whip?”

“Oh, that’s up to your discretion.”

“ _Really_? Excellent.”

**♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔**

A little over a decade later, Lord Vetinari said to his new[7] personal clerk, in a conversational manner intended to disarm, “Your father used to beat you, didn’t he?”

“Yes, sir,” Drumknott said, in that serene way of his, as he tidied up various files in the Oblong Office. He often did this: he was exceedingly tidy, and Vetinari rather approved.

Drumknott usually changed the subject immediately, when the Patrician attempted to quiz him upon some matter of the personal, but to Vetinari’s surprise, he was merely quiet, and so Vetinari asked, “Were you happy, when he died?”

“I expect so, sir,” Drumknott said. It was not an evasive answer: Drumknott did not usually give evasive answers, and while he lied very often, and with delicate aplomb[8], he did not like to lie to Lord Vetinari, who was his employer and, more importantly, represented the best interests of the city. Drumknott loved the city. At the core of his soul, surrounded by neatly-filed shelves of paperwork and stationery, and spring-loaded mechanisms, there was Ankh-Morpork. Were it not for the fact that the River Ankh did not flow so much as occasionally sludge in one direction, one might have said it flowed in his veins. “I don’t really remember. I remember stepping over his body, and walking to the Watch… Sergeant Colon and Corporal Nobbs came to have a look, before they swapped over to the Day Watch, sir.”

“Vimes wasn’t about?”

“He was drunk, sir. Unconscious, as I recall, and buried in some stupor,” Drumknott said, with the steely stiffness he sometimes had, when the conversation turned to Vimes. Vetinari felt his lip twitch. In the past year, however, he and his clerk had become much closer, and he felt that the two of them were neatly falling into step. Drumknott was an attentive young man, particular, focused. He was intelligent, too, and he _kept up_ , even better than Wonse had, which made him quite invaluable.

“Ah,” Vetinari said.

“I shall attend to the correspondence from Genua City, sir,” Drumknott said quietly.

“Drumknott,” Vetinari said.

“Sir?”

He wasn’t a handsome young man. He had unfortunately youthful features that were only exaggerated by his clerk’s robe and the glasses Vetinari had him where; his face was rather round with cheeks that tended to perennial pinkness, and although his features themselves were not very severe, he wore them with a very intense severity. Cold radiated from his expression almost as badly as it did from his hands, which suffered exceedingly woeful circulation.

But there was something in the way he held himself, the way he executed such quiet control over what, Vetinari was fairly certain (although of course, he could not be sure until he saw it in action), was an explosive temper; he spoke so softly and was capable of being so utterly unobtrusive, and yet Vetinari had watched him command two hundred clerks without so much as a thought. Mr Drumknott was a man of hidden depths, and Vetinari rather looked forward to exploring them.

“We might take Wuffles for a walk later, perhaps on the University campus. Just the two of us[9].” They ordinarily walked, just the two of them. But in saying it aloud, it took on a different meaning entirely, and Drumknott smiled just slightly: the severity faded somewhat from his features, leaving only honeyed warmth in its absence. It was controlled, of course, and carefully reined in, but it was undeniably present, and Vetinari felt his own lips twitch in eager parallel.

“The exercise would do us all good, sir,” Drumknott said. “Walking is good for the heart, I hear.”

The _heart!_ Why. Vetinari felt himself inhale at the sentimentality in the words, the subtle, delicate _romance_ of them, and he watched the way his clerk delicately inclined his head before stepping from the room. For just a moment, Vetinari thought of Drumknott’s father…

Then he put his mind back to his work.

**♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔**

And ten years after that…

Montana Evans was fast approaching the age of forty-five, and was having the time of his _life_. He lived a rather excellent one. He lectured at the Archaeologists’ Guild, of course, and he also guest-lectured at some of the other ones[10]. Montana, not being of a naturally academic lilt, did not much care for the _research_ side, and so he lectured in…

Practical skills.

Much of it was instinct, of course, but there were other things that were possible to teach. How to look for traps, how to work with them, how to map them out and disarm them; how to deal with the _locals_ , if they got all bothersome and started fussing about over “respect for the dead” and “trespassing” and such silly things as that; and how, most importantly, to pack things nicely and neatly to transport back home for the Archaeologists’ Guild.

This was just a boring little job, of course.

Sto Guvaden was one of the _very_ old duchies – this one had fallen nearly five hundred years ago, he thought, and no one had really managed to work their way past all the traps around the walls of the city, let alone all the magical warding, but _he_ managed it. He was a neat little man, Montana Evans: he wore a boater with a strawberry ribbon tied neatly about the rim, and a long whip. Some archaeologists used bullwhip for acrobatics and the like – they’d wrap the end of the whip, neatly weighted, to swing from beams – but Montana was very light on his feet, and preferred to creep and climb. He mostly used his whip to reach for things that were a bit far away.

He was just finishing up packing up some of the artefacts...

All of the documents were in Latatian, of course, and he wasn’t at all interested in fiddling through them – he could read them, with a bit of effort, but the puzzles and the exciting bits were over with now, and he certainly didn’t care enough to bother with all that.

There was _one_ interesting thing there, though.

The paintings, the paintings were interesting. He’d taken a few iconographs for the Guild, before everyone came out in a few weeks to see for themselves, but these paintings were ever so _interesting_. There seemed to be… He wasn’t sure. Some sort of old ritual, he felt, that involved respecting the death of the king, and people’s fathers – there were ghosts of some sort upon every painting, things like that.

He’d settled a few artefacts away.

Little known to him, one of them – a crown he had pilfered from the head of a once-king, dead upon his throne – had left magic on him. It wasn’t a curse, not exactly. It was not a blessing either. Whether it was a curse or a blessing rather depended on the luck of the draw. But this was not normal magic: it “infected” those it touched, and it only affected certain people.

Montana was not one of the people it would affect, but he _was_ a carrier.

When he got back to Ankh-Morpork…

One touches people, in the city. Between entering through the gatehouse and coming back to the Archaeologists’ Guild with his neat little coach of crates and copious notes, he touched dozens of people. He brushed shoulders with people, shook hands and clapped shoulders as he saw friends he knew; he ruffled the hair of children he met.

And those people touched other people. Some would merely be carriers: some would be _affected_.

He’d been out of the city for months, of course, working his way into the duchy’s defences. Coming home, he went where most men _would_ , and meandered in the direction of what was once called the _Whore Pits_ , but was now the Entertainment District, and visited the illustrious house of Mrs Palm…

And there, of course, the epidemic started _in earnest_ , to the ignorance of Montana Evans. This was not a spectacular truth, as the man was ignorant to almost everything, but it would affect the city… In many ways, in so many, inescapable ways, it would affect the _disc_.

It spread and it spread, but by the time anyone noticed, it was far too late.

 

[1] A mythological figure of Ephebian origin, Ganymead was so strikingly handsome that a few of the gods kidnapped him to bring him back to Dunroamin to serve them drinks. Unfortunately, one of them dropped him, and he drowned in a great vat of divine beer. This is widely called hubris, although the question as to whose hubris it was is the subject of hot debate.

[2] The boy was in street brawls often, and often started them on his leisurely walks to and from various libraries in the city. This was because all the boys in Dimwell knew better than to fight him by choice.

[3] The boy never called him “Father”, and certainly never called him anything else, except for his name, or a few choice insults, if he was feeling bold, and Jasper was especially drunk and uncoordinated. This had always been the case: the girl, on the other hand, simpered, called him _Dad_.

[4] Her hangovers were very bad indeed, but Rufus Drumknott argued that as she cooked for him two meals per day, and had even fed him from her breast when he was a babe in arms, it was only reasonable that he cook her and his sister breakfast every morning. His father, a comparatively late riser, could be cooked something by Miriam herself later on, as Rufus wouldn’t so much as pass his father a glance, let alone a plate of scrambled eggs.

[5] Fred Colon was very bad at mathematics, as evidenced by the above.

[6] Montana was originally meant to have a different name, but his mother had had a difficult labour and had needed very careful medical attention immediately after he was born, leaving his father, a natural lush, to go about his care for the first few days. Roger Evans was a devoted, if slightly harried and disorganised, father, and was very good indeed with the infant Montana, feeding him from a bottle. The paperwork, he was less good at. He had mixed up the two brainstorming papers he had gone through with Cynthia, one of which was for Montana, and one of which was for the kitten they were going to acquire. The kitten later acquired the name meant for Montana – Wilberforce. Even as an infant, Montana Evans was naturally very lucky.

[7] Drumknott had been in Vetinari’s service for a little over six months.

[8] Mr Drumknott, Vetinari had learned, could have an incredibly unexpressive face when he wanted to, and “when he wanted to” was the vast majority of the time.

[9] This translated to, “just the two of us, and the two dark clerks I have follow you whenever you leave the Palace, and the dark clerks who follow _me_ whenever I leave the Palace, and many other people who follow me for reasons of their own, which of course, I have planted in their minds.”

[10] Most notably, the Guild of Thieves, although were you to ask Mr Evans if thieving was a part of his profession, he would be quite baffled.


	2. The Article In The Times

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tailor Dad is Macdicilla's fault and also for her.

 “Now, you stay close to me,” Vimes said quietly. “We’ll just meet with the Patrician and then we’ll go down to the Zoological Gardens, alright?”

“Yes, Dad,” Young Sam chirruped obediently. His hand, small as it was, and currently marked over with the evidence of his recent education in the practice of climbing trees, was held gently in Vimes’ own. He had remarked, with no small delight and fascination, upon the coldness and impressiveness of Vimes’ gauntlets, but Vimes wasn’t actually working today, and although his son had wheedled, he wasn’t wearing them.

As they came to the top of the stairs, in response to a very warm, “Well, good morning, Mr Vimes!” that he had _certainly_ never been on the receiving end of himself, Young Sam disobeyed, and dropped Vimes’ hand to rush across the creaking boards of the corridor.

Mr Drumknott had already dropped into a crouch, outputting two scarred hands[1] and letting Young Sam slap them each with his own. “Hello, Mr Drumknott!” Young Sam said brightly, and then clapped his own hands together. “Do it!”

“Do what?” Mr Drumknott asked with exaggerated innocence, but Sam clapped his hands again together.

“Go on, Mr Drumknott, _please!”_

Vimes put his thumbs loosely against his belt as he watched the playing card flicker into being in Drumknott’s hand, and then appear to dance in the air just above his palm before fading once more from existence. It was reproduced from the ether just behind Young Sam’s ear, which was rather dirty[2]. Young Sam was laughing as the card disappeared entirely, and Vimes saw the ghost of a smile on Drumknott’s own pale features.

Young Sam got on well with Mr Drumknott – Sybil had remarked before that when “Havelock” joined her for tea, Mr Drumknott would fall into step with Willikins, Purity, and Young Sam. Purity said he was a nice man. Willikins disagreed, and said that he was a horrible man, although from Willikins, this was a compliment of the highest order.

“Magic, Mr Drumknott?” Vimes asked.

Drumknott’s smile faded immediately, replaced with a coldly severe look as he turned from Sam to his father, leaning back upon very polished heels. “ _No_ , sir,” he said quietly, with no small amount of reproach. “Only sleight of hand, sir.”

As was often the case with Drumknott, Vimes felt himself in want of an instruction manual. He was sure Vetinari had one somewhere. “Right,” he said awkwardly. Drumknott appeared not to notice any awkwardness, one way or the other. “Er, I _am_ to see Lord Vetinari, Drumknott.”

“Oh, yes, sir,” Drumknott said, and he stood to his feet, letting Young Sam take his hand as he came to knock on Vetinari’s door. Young Sam looked up at Drumknott with no small amount of admiration, which made sense, as after Vetinari had visited for tea one day, Young Sam had later regaled his father with the engrossing tale of what had happened, exactly, to the arm of a very unlucky stoker who had fallen palm first in front of one of the pipe exhausts.

He was very lucky not to die, what with the heat of the steam, but Young Sam had all but left the gore and blister by the wayside as he had explained to him how convection air currents worked, and why they were relevant to an engine’s working. It was the sign of anyone who was good with children, Vimes mused, that you could hook them with the right buzzwords – violence or mess, mechanisms or animals – and then trick them into learning something scientific or philosophical. Young Sam did not need much by way of tricking, these days, as he was growing very inquisitive in his own right, but he liked the effort anyway, and Drumknott certainly made it.

“Ah, Vimes,” Vetinari said, to Vimes’ son. “And _Vimes_ ,” he added, with a small smile to Vimes.

“You can call me Samuel if you like, Lord Vetinari,” Young Sam said brightly.

“May I? Then I shall,” Vetinari said, leaning at the waist to shake Young Sam’s proffered hand, although Young Sam’s ther remained in Drumknott’s. Many years ago, Vimes mused, it would have unsettled him, to see Vetinari with a smile like that on his thin lips, but now it wasn’t disconcerting at all. It was a warm smile, showing Vetinari’s white teeth. Vimes could _see_ the indulgence in it, the quiet affection. “Climbing trees, I see, Samuel.”

“Yes, sir!” Young Sam said brightly.

“Why don’t you show him the beech in the grounds, Drumknott?” Vetinari asked.

“Could Mr Fusspot come?” Young Sam asked.

“He _could_ ,” Vetinari said, with a doubtful glance toward the basket beneath his desk. A corpulent ball of soft brown fur was rising and falling, making an ugly, snuffling sound that could only be very generously called something so pedestrian as snoring. “As to whether he will…”

“Mr Fusspot,” Drumknott called crisply. A lazy head rose reluctantly from its nest. Two round, stupid eyes slowly blinked. “To heel.”

The dog released a noise like a creaking door, but he slowly stood to his feet and walked toward Drumknott and Young Sam. When he looked up at the boy, his curly tail gave an exceedingly lazy wag, and Sam laughed as he patted his head.

“Clerk Oliver is still next door, sir,” Drumknott said, and as he accompanied Young Sam and the slow-moving Mr Fusspot into the corridor, Vimes heard Young Sam ask a question about, of all things, pens. Immediately, Mr Drumknott launched into what promised to be a very in-depth explanation.

Vimes shut the door with a quiet click.

“Vimes,” Vetinari said quietly. “There’s something… _going on_.”

Vimes blinked.

It was not in the Patrician’s nature, he was unfortunately aware after several decades’ experience, to be frank and forthright in asking that Vimes approach an issue. Even most recently, with the business out in the country, he had let Vimes think it was about a holiday. This was… _different_.

Vimes’ gaze flickered to that morning’s copy of the _Ankh_ - _Morpork_ _Times_ , which was settled on top of Vetinari’s desk. Sybil had mentioned this morning, when she’d come in from some errand in town, that there was an editorial of young William de Worde’s that had been making the rounds about the city, and that people were all aflutter about it, talking about it, arguing about it. He hadn’t given it a look just yet.

“Something to do with de Worde’s editorial, sir? About parents and that?”

“No, no,” Vetinari murmured, his fingers brushing the surface of the paper. “Although Mr de Worde comes on in leaps and bounds, Vimes, and I certainly recommend the article. It’s a deeply affecting personal essay, and one that comes from a place of some inner strength, I’m sure.”

For just a moment, Vimes saw the ghost of Vetinari’s true expression. Quietly thoughtful, focused, but full of _care_. Once upon a time – before everything, before a thousand things – he’d thought that Vetinari didn’t care all that much, thought that his care for the city was defined by his own… Whatever. His own madness, or his own want for control.

But Vetinari did care, really.

He cared about the vulnerable; he cared about children; he cared about his coworkers and the city staff. He cared about _Vimes_ ; he cared about Sybil and Young Sam; he cared about Carrot and Angua, about Lipwig and Dearheart, about de Worde and Cripslock and their damned iconographer, about the wizards, about a _lot_ of people. It was uncomfortable, actually, to think about how much Vetinari cared at times.

And about de Worde and Lipwig (and, of course, Carrot( _especially_ … He saw the slight shift of Vetinari’s thin lips, the _smile_ , as he considered de Worde’s improvement. It faded, leaving merely Vetinari’s generally blank expression that he wore for work, but it had been there, for a moment.

Vetinari raised his head. “No, it isn’t about the paper, Vimes. My clerks have noticed something… strange. This is not yet a crime, and I know not yet if it is to be harmful, but I am informing you, as I have informed Archchancellor Ridcully, and in the event this develops in a way that is less than ideal, we shall then have a platform from which to respond.”

“You’re worried,” Vimes said.

“I am,” Vetinari allowed, with a slight inclination of his head. A few years ago, of course, he might not have admitted that so freely. “In the past three days, my people have noticed strange shades over people’s beds in the night. Dark shadows, as if bundles of blackness are hovering in the room with them as they speak. They don’t know what causes them, and according to the wizards, there’s nothing of substance, as yet, in these shadows. Merely that they are there.”

For a long moment, Vimes was quiet.

“Haven’t heard people mention it,” he said.

“The mentioning will come soon,” Vetinari murmured, his voice low and full of delicate, but stark certainty. “I do not wish to begin a panic, Vimes. That being said, this is Ankh-Morpork: I am sad to say that if I merely ignore the happenstance and allow it to unfold, people will fuss _less_ than were I to make an announcement drawing attention to it.” Vetinari sighed, raising his chin a little higher, his icy eyes staring into the middle distance. “My sources have revealed no information as to this. This is no plan from some other government, no strange attack by shadowed parties, not unless those parties do not communicate whatsoever. This is strange magic, and yet for what cause, to what end, by whom, we cannot say.”

Vimes watched Vetinari’s hand come up to his face, and he watched thin, veined fingers drag over the base of Vetinari’s lower lip. It was a slow, measured movement, but Vimes knew – he thought he knew, anyway, even when _knowing_ Vetinari, he could never exactly be sure – he wouldn’t do this in front of just anybody.

It was…

 _Worry_. Real, genuine, obvious worry. Vimes felt an uncomfortable pit in his stomach, but what could they do? If this was magic, and the wizards couldn’t see anything, there was no way…

“Sir,” Vimes said. “I’ll keep an eye out. See if anything comes into the Watchhouse.”

“I shall allow you to go about your day’s reprieve,” Vetinari said mildly. “Here, Vimes, the paper. You might read the editorial. Do you have an appointment to keep?”

“No,” Vimes murmured, taking hold of the paper. “Just thought we’d take a wander about the Palace Zoo while we were here. That’s why I agreed to come, lord, to be honest.” Vetinari smiled, and they began to move down the stairs.

It was a sunny day, although there were dark clouds on the horizon, threatening rain later in the day, no doubt. In the meantime, it was warm, and comfortable… But not too hot, not too humid. Young Sam was rushing back and forth, and panting, Mr Fusspot was half-heartedly chasing after him. Much more energetically, Mr Drumknott was doing the same, and Vimes noted how funny his posture was as he did so: he was still stiff and straight-backed, still strangely proper, even as he smiled and laughed, occasionally catching hold of Young Sam and hauling him up and off the ground, sweeping him into the air with easy strength.

“Ah, Drumknott,” Vetinari said, with no small amount of warmth, and Drumknott turned with Young Sam held under one arm, the boy upsidedown and laughing as he squirmed, legs kicking outward. “Having fun?”

“Not at all, sir,” Drumknott said measuredly, sounding only slightly out-of-breath. “Merely doing my duty, sir.”

“ _Liar!”_ yelled Young Sam with delight, kicking his heels, and Drumknott lifted him up higher, up onto one shoulder with as much ease as Willikins did, despite being half the man’s size. Young Sam giggled, struggling ineffectually. “We’re gonna climb the big beech tree!”

“Curious use of the collective pronoun, Mr Vimes.”

“It _is_ collective, ‘cause you’re going to climb it too!”

“Fascinating, Mr Vimes, the delusions of a youthful mind,” Drumknott said airily.

“Can we, Dad? _Please_?”

“You’ll catch him if he falls, right?”

Drumknott gave him a disapproving look. “I would not allow him to _fall_ , Commander Vimes.” Young Sam was leaning to grab at the back of his suit jacket, tugging him in the direction of the big beech, and Vimes looked from Drumknott to Vetinari, who was smiling just slightly. Drumknott took a slow step back inn the direction of the beech tree, and Young Sam released a noise of victory as Drumknott turned back in the direction of the tree, dropping Young Sam back onto the ground.

Mr Fusspot, exhausted, dropped over Vetinari’s feet as he and Vimes settled on one of the stone benches, and Vimes glanced down at the paper.

**_Is every parent’s love unconditional? Is every parent worth loving?_ **

**_By William de Worde, Editor. Op-ed._ **

_Since getting married some years ago, I have become more aware of the natural expectation that a man and woman, married and of a certain age, should have children. As a boy myself, I never gave much thought to having children of my own._

_I never understood other children at the time, and always felt, in many ways, as if I was on the outside: I didn’t fare well with sports, but I wasn’t good at a lot of other childhood hobbies, either. I mostly liked to be on my own, and other children were even more confusing to me than adults. I didn’t understand the games they played together, and I was always on the outside._

_Now, I’m no longer a child. And when I meet children, I find that I like them. I like the way they laugh with one another, and I watch the way they interact, in so carefree a way. Even the children that were like I was, when I was a little boy, have a different perspective to adults, and see the world through their eyes. I do not know, however, if I would be a good father to children of my own. My wife tells me, in turn, that she does not know if she would be a good mother._

_What I do know, when I think idly on the idea of having children of our own, is that any children that we had would be loved. I know that. I know that were we to have a baby between us, or even to adopt an older child, that we would dote upon them, take care as to their education, spend time with them. It isn’t easy to make time for such things when you’re working hard, but with that said…_

_There is nothing more tragic than when a child is unhappy._

_I would like to say that there is nothing so unforgivable, so ugly, so reprehensible, as to neglect a child in your care. To ignore them, and to not care much as to their well-being, but more than that, to not care as to them, as people, as individuals. I would like to say there is nothing worse than that._

_But that isn’t true._

_There are parents who harm their children, are there not? We don’t like to consider it, I know. It’s an uncomfortable truth, but there are parents who abuse their children. Parents who beat them, leave them a mess of scars and old injuries, or starve their children, or lock them up for days on end. There are parents who humiliate their children._

_It is said by some that a parent’s love is utterly unconditional; it is said by some that children have a responsibility to honour their parents, to love them, to care for them, and yet if a parent does not afford that to their children, why should a child feel obligated? If a parent has brought a son or daughter into the world, only to make their life a living misery, what does the child owe them, if anything?_

_You take care, in my line of work, not to be part of the story. You’re not meant to be the story, after all. You’re just meant to report on it, and then you’re meant to stand by and look on as events unfold._

_You can’t do that, as a parent. You can’t stand back and observe._

_That’s unforgivable._

_A parent is not a mere observer: a parent should be involved, should nourish and cherish, should take care and time, devote focus… But to be cruel to one’s child? One is much less than a parent, then._

_You don’t deserve the title of father, if you’ve never taken the time to love your children, if you’ve actively brought them pain and suffering; you don’t deserve the title of mother, if you’ve only ever been cold, if you’ve sought to deprive your child rather than give them what you can. Not everyone has good parents, worth loving, worth caring for. Some so-called parents deserve only the worst that the gods can give them._

_And yet, we are so uncomfortable with this truth, that when we come across someone who does not speak with their parents, who has cut them from their life and no longer speaks with them, or even has taken the time to actively fight against that person, the initial response is disgust and judgement. We look badly upon those who do not write to their mothers and fathers, and never take into account why they may not do so._

_It would be beautiful to live in a world where every little girl and boy has parents who deserve their love, that treat them as the precious things they are, but that world has yet to come to pass._

_We must strive to protect those children that need protecting, even if they must be protected from those who should love and care for them the most._ _And if a child goes to lengths to protect themselves, particularly as adults, perhaps we should be more understanding, and not lean hard upon questioning their choices._

Vimes thought about this for a long moment.

He’d never known his father. He’d been a drunk, he knew, he’d learned that much, but he’d never known the man, but his mother… She’d been a good woman. Had cared deeply, not just about Vimes, but about _everybody_ , always wanted to be a mother to those she could be, if she was able. She wasn’t perfect, no. She could have a funny temper, at times, got funny about some things. Not _nasty_ , just… An oscillation between over protective and desperate to push him out of the nest.

He missed her.

She’d loved him, he knew that, and he’d loved her, and the _idea_ , just the _idea_ , that a mother could be so uncaring, not at all like her, but like… that. When he’d move the world for Young Sam, himself, when he knew Sybil would write a stern letter to Great A’Tuin if she thought it would cheer the boy up, never even _dream_ of setting him aside…

Vimes looked up from the editorial, and he looked to Young Sam. He and Drumknott were each perched on one of the taller branches, and Young Sam – of course – was pointing excitedly to what Vimes was certain, even from this far away, was bird shit. Mr Drumknott was paying attention to Young Sam’s exciting scatological lecture with intent and polite interest, and seemed very proper, for a man perched on his toes upon a tree branch.

“Good piece,” Vimes said. “It’s gonna piss people off.”

“I told him he ought write home to his father more, once,” Vetinari said quietly. “I told him it was a sad thing when families fall out. I didn’t know, at the time, that _his_ father… I thought he was merely somewhat cold, and stubborn.”

“He isn’t, I s’pose?”

“No,” Vetinari said. “Two years ago, he fell off one of the boats coming back from Quirm as it was coming into port, trying to get an iconograph for Mr Chriek, and it was freezing cold. When he came onto the beach, his wife and some of the other reporters had come to meet them, and they had to undress him to wrap him in dry clothes. Some of my men caught a glimpse of his back, and then looked into Lord de Worde’s staff to confirm what it was they saw.”

“Lotta scars.”

“Yes.”

“Like your Mr Drumknott.”

For a moment, there was quiet, and Vimes glanced to Vetinari as he exhaled.

“Saw him after he got stabbed, when he was at Pseudopolis Yard,” Vimes reminded him. “He’s got more scars than I have.”

“Yes,” Vetinari said. “His father was an ugly man, Vimes. What of yours?”

“Mine was a drunk,” Vimes said. Vimes remembered the case, vaguely. The day watch had taken it off their hands, but he remembered that Fred Colon had been upset for a few days afterward, had spent a good deal of time with his wife. Jasper Drumknott… Violent man, apparently, who’d seemed a good man from the outside.

“His too,” Vetinari agreed. “He was very relieved when he died.”

“What about your dad, sir?” Vimes asked. They didn’t look at one another. He still called him sir. It made it easier, he supposed, not looking at one another. Vetinari and Sybil could have tea together, could settle down and sip their drinks and chat, but Vimes couldn’t do that. He and Vetinari were friends now, in a way, but not…

 _Friendly_.

They weren’t friendly people, neither of them. Not when Vetinari was being Patrician, anyway.

 “My father was killed by a horse,” Vetinari said mildly to Vimes, watching as Drumknott caught hold of Young Sam and supported him to a different branch. He had been of pensive mood, today, more prone to inward thinking even than usual, and he had found his mind straying back to his father more and more, since reading the article this morning. “One of the other members of the Alchemists’ Guild drugged the animal, sending it into a frenzy: it bucked wildly, and kicked him in the face. Not the worst way to die, I don’t believe: he was quite expired before he even hit the floor. Quite his fault, of course: he ought have paid more attention to his surroundings, and he would still be alive.” There was no grief in his voice. It was merely the way things were, and it had been such a long time ago now.

Would he still be alive, had he lived, then? There was no sense musing on it, no logic in the little flight of fancy, and yet at times, Vetinari found his mind wandering in that direction. He remembered so little of his father. The man was but a ghost in his mind, a blue-clad figure in motion, laughing, smiling, singing…

He couldn’t even remember the man’s face, really. Oh, he knew what it looked like in portraits, but the portraits were so serious, and he didn’t think his father had ever frowned, or looked quite so stern.

The portraits of Vincenzo, funnily enough, looked more like his son than the man himself. Curious, how much he felt he _missed_ the man, when he could not truly define precisely what it was he missed about him.

And now he thought of William de Worde, jibing at him to take up with his _own_ father, when the two cases weren’t the same at all…

“How old were you?” Vimes asked, in the curious but distrustful tone he usually used when Vetinari said anything. Vetinari wondered, sometimes, precisely what Vimes made of him: he knew Vimes didn’t trust him, which was well enough indeed, but what did he _really_ think? What did he…?

But no.

No, it hardly allowed to dwell on such considerations.

“I was seven,” Vetinari said. “My aunt was sent for, of course, and we moved to her country home, outside of Pseudopolis, until I returned to Ankh-Morpork for school.”

“Pseudopolis?” Vimes repeated. “Not Brindisi?”

Vetinari smirked. “Oh, you _do_ listen to what Sybil says about our talks, then, Vimes?” he asked lightly.

He heard Vimes let out a grumbling noise that was not quite a grunt. 

Vincenzo Vetinari had been an active soul. A paid-up member of the Alchemists’ Guild, a passionate tinkerer, very much a fan of _devices_ and the like; he had not needed an occupation, as wealthy as the Vetinari family was, but he had become a merchant anyway, and had travelled extensively before he had married Vetinari’s mother, whereupon he had settled more permanently between Ankh-Morpork and Limbardi.

Vetinari had spent so many summers in Limbardi, as a boy.

How long, now, since he last returned to Brindisi? Fifteen years? Twenty?

“Did you ever know your father, Vimes?” Vetinari asked.

“No, sir,” Vimes said.

“Of course,” Vetinari murmured, “none of us _truly_ know our fathers. None of us truly knows anyone.” This wasn’t true, of course, and Vetinari knew that, but it was the sort of thing one said, particularly when one was Havelock Vetinari, Patrician to Ankh-Morpork. There was an image to be considered.

“Don’t believe that, sir,” Vimes said, in the tone of a man who knew that Vetinari had an image to keep up, and didn’t much care for it. Vetinari’s lip twitched. Drumknott had come down, now, and was reaching up to catch Young Sam by the hips, setting him back down on the ground so he could run in their direction. “Will that be all, sir?”

“Yes, Vimes, that’s all,” Vetinari murmured. “My regards to Sybil, and do enjoy the Zoological Gardens.”

“Yessir, thank you, sir,” Vimes said, and Vetinari didn’t turn as he heard Vimes step away. He watched them, for just a moment, watched Young Sam holding his father’s hand as they walked in the one direction, and he felt a strange emotion, a sort of deep… Affection? More than that, he felt.

He and Drumknott, with Mr Fusspot in tow, walked back up to his office, and Vetinari remained quietly thoughtful as he wrapped his arms about his clerk, the two of them before the wide window in his office, dragging the clerk up and against his chest, his mouth against the other man’s temple.

“When was the last time I went to Brindisi, Drumknott?” he asked as Drumknott’s fingers came up to brush over Vetinari’s arms.

“Twenty-two years ago, sir, according to Mr Wonse’s records,” Drumknott answered smoothly, without so much as a hesitation. Seventeen years ago… Drumknott had been in his service for nineteen, and yet, of course, he had carefully studied all of the records to hand. He carefully studied everything in the Palace, Vetinari especially.

“Mr Drumknott, you truly do _know_ me,” Vetinari murmured.

“Yes, sir,” Drumknott said. “Every night, sir.”

“Oh, you _minx_ ,” Vetinari murmured, but the scolding note to his tone was somewhat let down by the fact that he reached down, drawing his fingers over the edge of his clerk’s hip. Drumknott leaned back against him, and Vetinari saw in the reflection in the window the way his eyes closed shut. “Would you like Brindisi, perhaps?”

“It would depend entirely on the company, sir,” Drumknott said. “Were you to stay behind, I might like it well enough.”

Vetinari turned his head, and his lips brushed the side of Drumknott’s temple, carefully avoiding the greased edge of his hairline. The scent of the unguent coiffing his hair wasn’t overpowering, nor even strong, but Vetinari took care not to inhale too deeply anyway, as he disliked the chemical lilt.

“You are a nasty little man, Mr Drumknott,” Vetinari said.

“Yes, sir,” Drumknott said, with some warmth and humour – two traits he would never display in any public setting, and that were ordinarily reserved for Vetinari and a very select few others. Young Sam, of course, was included, but that Vimes was included was... Good, in recent years. He had had so little respect for Vimes, years ago. “All for you, sir. In any case, there is soon to be an ambassadorial contingent to Brindisi, this August coming, for the summit. I see no reason why you might not attend yourself, or alongside our ambassador.”

“And, _pray_ ,” Vetinari murmured, dragging Drumknott closer, but Drumknott, after nineteen years, was more than used to this treatment, and did not stumble as the Patrician drew him tighter against his chest and lifting him slightly off the ground, his arms wrapping about Drumknott’s and his chin not quite resting on his head, to spare his goatee the brilliantine, “were I to deflower you in the green gardens of my familial home in the mountains there, what might you do?”

“I would express surprise, sir,” Drumknott said dryly, “that you had found so much as a daisy to relieve me of.”

“You do rather ruin my romantic overtures, Drumknott.”

“I try manfully, sir.”

“Manful _indeed_ ,” Vetinari murmured, his hand dragging down the front of Drumknott’s shirt, and Drumknott caught his wrist in a surprisingly strong grip.

“It is four minutes past five, my lord. We have but eleven more minutes to prepare for the meeting of the Guild Heads’.”

“What was it I was saying about ruination?”

“ _Later_ , sir.”

“I shall hold you to it, Mr Drumknott,” Vetinari said, and released him.

“I would expect no less, sir,” Drumknott said primly, but Vetinari saw the shadow of his lips in the scant reflection of the window, and they were curved in a bright, affectionate smile. He exhaled in satisfaction, and when Drumknott pressed a file into his hands, he took it.

**♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔**

“Villiam,” Otto murmured, wrapping his arms a bit more tightly around the other man’s waist and drawing him closer. He pressed a kiss to William’s shoulder, adjusting the other man in his lap, and he watched as Sacharissa drew him into a kiss, slowly. He was quieter than usual – thoughtful. Otto didn’t mind for him to be quiet, to be thoughtful, but he did _worry_ , when William didn’t share his thoughts. He was at a point in his life, Otto hoped, where he _could_ share his thoughts, with Sacharissa, with Otto. “Villiam?”

“I’m alright,” William said. “Are you sure I should have published that editorial? My father—”

“I hope your father reads it,” Sacharissa said quietly, urgently. “I hope he feels ashamed.” She fell forward, settling into William’s lap, and Otto reached out, the hand that wasn’t resting on William’s lower back resting on hers instead. The chair gave a slight creak of complaint, but it had taken their combined weight before, and this activity wasn’t strenuous whatsoever.

“People all over the city vill be reading that piece, perhaps rethinking things,” Otto said lowly, gently rubbing a circle at the base of William and Sacharissa’s spines, his hands moving slowly, lovingly. “My father vas not so great, hm? He vas a rake, you know – not attentive with children, not so good. But that vas a long time ago.”

“How long?” William asked, his voice muffled by Sacharissa’s breast, against which he had pressed his face.

“Since I vas a little boy? Ah, one-hundred-fifty years, one-hundred-seventy, at high estimate,” Otto said. He nibbled at William’s shoulder through his shoulder. “I’m a cradle-burglar, hm?”

“You _know_ it’s cradle robber,” Sacharissa said sternly, but she said it through a barely stifled laugh, leaning to kiss William on the forehead, and then kissing Otto’s for good measure. Otto let his hands shift lower on each side, and William yelped. Sacharissa giggled. “My father wasn’t perfect either. He was… Anxious. Not that he meant to be nasty, or anything, just that he was so anxious, and such a perfectionist, that he was… He used to make _me_ really nervous too.”

“You aren’t alone, Villiam,” Otto murmured, affectionately squeezing the curve of William’s arse. “It vas _important_ , Villiam.”

“It was the truth,” Sacharissa agreed, and William exhaled, and let the two of them hug him between them. Otto wondered, sometimes, if he ought have gone further with Lord de Worde. Could he have done that, for William? Could he have ended…?

“Kiss me,” Otto said.

They kissed him both at once, and it was sloppy and a little clumsy, messy. He didn’t mind.

**♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔**

Outside, it was raining. Drumknott could distantly hear the patter of it on one of the nearby rooves, and he wished there was a window in the small bedroom they shared together, so that he could watch the rain gather on the glass. He used to do that, when he was a little boy, and he couldn’t sleep: he’d lie in the darkness with his gaze on the window, watching the droplets gather on the glass surface and slowly run down. It was a meditative exercise, a calming one.

He could focus on the window, then, and not on anything else, but those were different times. He’d lie awake in his bed, trembling as he waited to hear the front door slam, tense and unable to fall asleep, not until he was sure it was safe, not until—

“Rufus?”

He looked down at Vetinari, who was frowning at him, his thin lips twisted as he looked up at him, his fingers slowly drawing over Drumknott’s thighs, coming up to gently grip at his naked hips. He was in Vetinari’s lap, loosely straddling his thighs and making sure not to put too much pressure on the old wound there, and Vetinari reached up further, gently touching his neck, his jaw.

“Did you say something?” Drumknott asked.

“I asked about your father,” Vetinari said, his voice low and measured as he took his clerk’s hand gently in his own, his thumb drawing a pleasant circle over his wrist as the other fingers drummed over his hip. Drumknott liked to sit like this, in Vetinari’s lap, liked the warmth of his body and the way he touched him, so instinctively, so gently, and they usually talked in these moments, but—

“Oh,” Drumknott murmured, and Vetinari’s head shifted on the pillows, pressing back against them. In the darkness, he saw only a slight glint of his icy-blue eyes. “What about him?”

“Sometimes,” Vetinari murmured, “you get a glazed look in your eyes, stare into space, and your body… _tightens_. I wondered if you were thinking about him. What with that article this morning…” It was said not incautiously: curiosity was present, but it was overwhelmed by gentle concern. Vetinari did not wish to hurt him, but at times, he wished only to _know_ , wished only to understand… And Drumknott, try as he might, was not always adept at being understood, and often tried for the opposite on pure reflex.

Drumknott looked down at him, touched his fingers to the silk shirt front of the Patrician’s pyjamas… Drumknott’s own pyjamas were folded neatly on the chest of drawers, within reach from the bed, but he didn’t want to put them on: when he slid beneath the sheets, he would press himself up against Vetinari’s body, intertangle their fingers, feel Vetinari’s fingers curl through his hair.

“No,” Drumknott said. “I don’t think about him.”

He had once told Lord Vetinari, when he had taken his position as his lordship’s secretary, that deception was not in his nature. Vetinari hadn’t believed him then, either.

“Don’t you?” Vetinari asked, sitting up, and he gently cradled Drumknott’s back as he pulled him closer: they were chest to chest, and Drumknott let his head relax forward, settling his face in the crook of Vetinari’s neck as he stroked his back, his fingers tracing back and forth up the line of his spine.

“No,” Drumknott said, murmuring the word against Vetinari’s collarbone, and Vetinari kissed the side of his head, his lips drawing through Drumknott’s hair. His fingers drifted through the curls, and not for the first time, Vetinari privately wished his clerk might be convinced to allow his hair to go without its expected blanket of brilliantine… But no, Mr Drumknott would consider that to be the height of impropriety, no matter what Vetinari said.

“You are good at deception, my dear,” Vetinari said softly. The last word settled, pure light, pure warmth, in Drumknott’s heart, and he sighed, tightening his arms around Vetinari and hugging him tightly.

“Thank you, sir,” he said, awkwardly stiff although he didn’t mean to be, and he let Vetinari draw him back down onto the bed, wrapping his arms about Drumknott’s body and dragging him close. Vetinari didn’t like to be called _sir_ , or _my lord_ , when they were alone together, but Drumknott reserved his forename only for occasions of the deepest intimacy or of very high pressure, and much as he wished he could complain, he could not. He and Drumknott were each, he mused, made in their casts, and even a plea every hour could not change a man’s basest nature all at once. These things happened slowly, over time – although not easily.

Vetinari’s mouth kissed slow kisses over the back of his neck, the nape of it, his nose buried in the back of Drumknott’s head of hair, and Drumknott wriggled and laughed, sighed, relaxed.

“Precious thing,” Vetinari almost said, but didn’t. There were limits to that which he could say, to that which either of them could say, even when laid in bed together, their bodies pressed to one another. There were limits to that which he could say to Drumknott and still enjoy his body, his intimacy, without his skin hardening to armour. It was one thing, for them to play with innuendo and flirtation, for it to be about sex and physicality, or even overtly flowery, poetic words, in the office, but here, in bed, with naught between their hearts but flesh and bedsheets…

It wasn’t a lack of trust. Vetinari knew that, at least: Drumknott trusted him to the ends of the Disc.

No, it was something… different. Something worse. He could hardly blame him, the life he’d had.

“Good night,” Drumknott said, somewhat sleepily, sounding for all the world relaxed, and settled in the bliss of their shared bed.

“Good night,” Vetinari echoed softly, and held him as tightly as he dared.

**♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔**

The black shadows only affected some people in Ankh-Morpork.

They appeared in the night, without warning, and initially were dark and hazy, hovering balls of black. As the days passed by, they became a darker, denser black, and the shadow spread outward.

The people of Ankh-Morpork, relatively used to odd instances of strange magic, mostly ignored them. When they began to appear in the day time, too, just hovering a little ways behind people as they went about their day’s work… On the fifth day, the shadows got bigger still, and formed into figures.

They mostly matched the individuals they were attached to. The humans had roughly human-sized ones; the dwarfs had roughly dwarf-sized ones; the trolls had roughly troll-sized ones. But the shadows weren’t corporeal, really, and they would fade into furniture or walls. On the sixth day, they gained a little definition, something closer to features.

 It was on the seventh day that things changed.

Seven days ago, Maria de Launcette, one of Rosemary Palm’s favourite girls, had welcomed with open arms and a bright smile, the somewhat infamous archaeologist. She’d clapped the man on the shoulder, patted him on the cheek, and brought him in for his usual…

The two men – a pair of Quirmian men who lived on a farm on the road to Sto Helit, and were _mostly_ retired – were unaffected, being as they were outside of Ankh-Morpork’s walls. Maria had noticed the shadow a few days later, but didn’t make the connection between Montana’s visit and the shadow in question. Other girls and boys in the brothel, and around the street, had had the same sort of thing happen.

On the seventh day, she awoke with a dreadful shock.

“Maria!” Claude de Launcette said a second time, clapping two plump hands together and making no sound at all. “My girl, my dear, can you hear me, darling? Can you hear me?”

“Papa!” Maria said, sitting up in bed and staring at him. Claude was… transparent. He was no longer a silhouette of dark shadow, though: he had roughly the right colouring, but he was transparent, and she could see right through him. He was wearing his pyjamas, his bare feet upon the floor of her little room. “Is this a dream?”

“I was going to ask you the same question, my girl! I thought I was dead, ah? But now, I am not dead: I am here!”

“You _are_ dead, Papa!” Maria said.

“What is this, you are asleep and it is, uh, eleven o’clock, noon…?”

“Oh,” Maria said slowly. “I work… nights.”

“What is it you do, working nights?”

“I’m…” Maria took a long moment of thought. The panic at seeing her father, dead the past ten years, as a spectre at her bedside, some many miles away from Quirm City, where he had lived out his entire life, was overtaken at the abrupt panic of having to explain her profession. Her father had been a very successful clothier and haberdasher, and in contrast… “I, uh, I’m a seamstress, Papa, but there was a big project and I needed to—”

“Ah, no need to explain, my girl,” Claude said, tapping the side of his nose. “One tailor to another, ah?”

He winked.

Maria de Launcette’s jaw dropped, and a hundred half-understood remarks from her family at parties suddenly made sense.

**♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔**

**RETURN OF THE FATHERS?**

_Across the city, we’ve been receiving reports that the mysterious dark shadows noted in the past week have transformed, in some cases, into the fathers of those to which they are connected! Appearing as ghostly figures, partly transparent and able to walk through furniture and walls, they seem to be fully aware of their past lives, up to and including their deaths._

_Reaching out to the Unseen University for comment…_

“It’ll be alright,” Vetinari said quietly. “If this is some manner of contagion, Mr Drumknott, we will take care—”

“It’s alright,” Drumknott said, although his tone was brittle. “You needn’t fuss. I must down to the Clerks’ Department for the Thursday meeting.”

“I do not _fuss_ , Drumknott.”

“I will to the meeting, sir,” Drumknott said, already moving, and Vetinari watched him go, almost raising his hand to reach for him and draw him back, but— There were limits. There were always limits.

He looked back to the newspaper, considering, for just a moment…

But, no.

No.

It wasn’t real, after all. What was the sense in wanting for something like that?

 

[1] In the rare event that Mr Drumknott allowed himself to be noticed – which was not often the case, as the man had made unobtrusiveness his most passionate goal in life – many noted (and did not remark upon) the indelicacy of his hands. Mr Drumknott lacked the softness of a clerk’s hands, marred only by one or two pen-prompted callouses or perhaps a tiny nick from a rogue letter opener. His hands were a mess of scars and marks and callouses, and revealed to the keen observer that he was a lad of the streets, no matter how well put-together he was now. Of course, most scars on the hands, and especially on the palms, do not last, and are neatly worked away over time. Drumknott’s scars were too deep for that: one might surmise he had been either a clumsy boy, or an exceedingly unlucky one.  
  
Boys with nasty fathers are the unluckiest of all.

[2] To the distress of parents everywhere, young children seem to cache dirt in incredible proportions behind their ears. How it gets here, even the academics at the Unseen University cannot surmise, but it is an enemy that proves near impossible to defeat even with twice-daily scrubbings.


	3. Chapter 3

Ponder Stibbons’ fingers brushed against Vetinari’s as he handed over the sheaf of papers: he was often clumsy like this, when excited, and indeed, was so excited in the moment that he scarcely noted the severe look Vetinari gave him in response, before he looked down to the papers in his hand.

“Is Mr Drumknott not here, my lord?” Ponder asked, just a little bit too eagerly, and Vetinari turned a stare on him again, but Ridcully coughed, clapping his hand down hard on the boy’s back. Archchancellor Ridcully, Vetinari noticed, had a thick, black shadow hovering at his shoulder.

“Stibbons just likes his sense of order, of course,” Ridcully said quickly, shoving Ponder back toward Hex as the machine spat out another sheet of indeterminable readings.

“Of course,” Vetinari murmured, tone dark, and he let his gaze flit over the lines of Ponder’s neat handwriting. Mr Drumknott had not accompanied him out of the Palace, of course. For the past two days, as fathers had sprung about all over the city, he had remained in relative isolation.

It was…

It was less than ideal, this much was true. Vetinari had suggested he take a trip outside of the city, that he visit his aunt in Sto Radley, but this had been met with indignation, and an indignant Drumknott was not one he relished.

“From what we can tell,” Ponder said, “it goes to the eldest in a family line, and _possibly_ the eldest son. We’re not sure how it’s transmitted yet, though. It doesn’t do any harm – it doesn’t, ah, _sap_ energy, but sort of piggybacks onto that person’s energy, er, but the ghost of that energy, do you take my meaning?”

“Not at all,” Vetinari said bluntly.

“Er—” Ponder said.

“He means,” Rincewind, who was tapping his foot and looking, as ever, very anxious, “that if you eat a meal, your father gets the _ghost_ of that meal, its spiritual ghost, that is. For every breath you take, your father takes one too, but it’s the _spirit_ of that breath.”

“I see,” Vetinari said, who did not, and didn’t care to. “And you _call_ these spectres fathers? You do believe, then, that they are shades summoned from a netherworld? They are, in effect, the _real_ thing?”

“That’s debatable,” Ponder said excitably, “because—”

“No, it isn’t,” said Rincewind, who understood the Patrician better than Ponder understood him, or indeed, understood any person, and swiftly read the knife edge in Vetinari’s expression, “ _yes_ , sir. We, er, we think that it’s— That it’s like a ghost, being pulled back from whenever it was that they died, although the actual ghost is sort of… shaped however they thought of themselves. Most of them haven’t got any injuries from their death blows, or anything like that.”

“Mr Reising is here,” said a student wizard from the doorway, and Ponder clapped his hands together, leading them through to a strange little room with a glass window on one side of the room. Sitting down in the room was a young man with blond ringlets that came down about his shoulders, wearing a light blouse. He was an actor, Vetinari was aware, and worked somewhat closely with Charlie: his name was Vigorously Reising, and he was the youngest of five brothers. He was currently staring straight forward, apparently tuning out everything that the ghost of his father, the late Often Early Reising[1], was saying to him.

Vetinari watched, his expression unchanging, at the way the man paced back and forth, his voice only slightly muffled by the glass wall, “… dressing like you do, do you think you’re a libertine? Are you trying to get people to think that you’re a girl, with that damned mop on your head, and all that rouge on your cheeks, I’m surprised you don’t paint your lips!”

“They are painted, Father, it’s just a muted colour,” young Vigorously said, his tone patient, although his eyes were slightly unfocused, and his tone was dull. “I’d never go out without a full face.”

“You awful little—”

“We’re testing,” Ponder said brightly, with just enough tightly-drawn force in his smile to show that he did _indeed_ hear the torrent of verbal abuse Often Early Reising was laying on his son’s shoulders, “how it’s transmitted!”

“Oh, Steadily, you’re here,” said Vigorously as his brother entered the room. “Thank the gods.”

“Oh, you think you have the right to invoke the gods? Wearing your dresses—”

“A lot of the gods wear dresses, Father.”

“You _blaspheming_ little—”

“ _Hello_ , Father,” said Steadily in a loud voice, glancing toward the glass, and Ponder gave him a thumbs up. Often Early Rising looked up from Vigorously, and he seemed to relax as he looked at Steadily, who was, if Vetinari recalled, the middle brother. He’d gone to the same school as Drumknott, Vetinari thought, although of course, he’d been several years below. He was a banking clerk, now, and he and his brother looked like the difference between night and day, what with Vigorously’s flowing, blue sleeves and trousers so tight they looked as if they’d been poured wet over his dancer’s calves; Steadily wore a neat, grey suit, tailored loosely to him, although there was a spot of colour in the blue of his bowtie. Vetinari noted that the blouse and bowtie were made of the same fabric: Vigorously made his own clothes and costumes, and often wrote small guides on complicated aspects of sewing for the _Ankh-Morpork Times_. “Are you alright?”

His face was angled toward the transparent spectre of Often Early, but his gaze and his body faced his brother, and Vetinari saw the small movement of Vigorously’s graceful head as Often Early said, “ _Ridiculous_ , this business! I’m meant to be dead!”

“Yes, Father, I know,” Edgar said. “The wizards think that if the spell, whatever it is, will be transferred to me, though, because I’m older than Vigorously.”

“Oh, well, _good_ ,” Often Early snapped, and behind him, Vigorously rolled his eyes.

“Can you step a bit closer together?” Ponder asked, and Vigorously stood to his feet, taking slow steps toward his brother as Steadily remained still, his hands loosely clasped behind his back. “It should happen all at once… Can you stand close enough that you’re breathing in the same air? Don’t touch!”

Vigorously stood nose-to-nose with his brother, and side-by-side, one could see the similarities in their faces, in the heart shapes of their faces, in the precise curve of the shell of their ears, and noses that had the same little upturn at the end.

“Do you feel any different, Mr Reising?” Ponder asked.

“ _No_ ,” Mr Reising said petulantly.

“We talked to some of the ghosts who’ve been transferred,” Ponder said to Vetinari. Ponder’s own father, with whom he had always been on pleasant, but mutually confused terms, was alive, and he did have to wonder what it must be like, for all these people, having their fathers brought back to… Well. Not _life_ , but— “They said they can feel the shift. Er, touch his shoulder, Vigorously? Through his clothes!”

Vigorously touched his brother’s shoulder, and there was, for just a moment, a flicker in Often Early’s figure, and he exhaled.

“Well, thank the _gods_ for that,” he said bitterly.

“Can I go?” Vigorously asked, one slim hand settling on his hip as he looked back toward the window, and Vetinari watched Ponder glance down at his notebook, his lips moving.

“Oh…”

“What?” Ridcully demanded.

“I thought it would have to be skin-to-skin contact,” Ponder muttered. “But that’s through the clothes, that means that just brushing against someone in the _street_ would—”

Vetinari very slowly clenched his fingers into loose fists, and asked, in delicate tones, “Mr Stibbons?”

“Lord Vetinari?”

“Those whose fathers are still alive… Are they capable of _carrying_ the spell? Even if it is not something that affects them?”

“Uh…” Ponder said. “We need to do more experiments, but I think—” He saw the widening of the wizard’s eyes as he stared at Vetinari, saw the understanding pass across his face, and Vetinari held up one hand as he opened his mouth.

“Say nothing,” he said quietly. “And continue with your experimentation.”

Fifteen minutes into the interviews of the three Reisings, Often Early Reising disappeared. Across the city, Passionately Reising, a wedding planner who was currently discussing floral arrangements with a florist and the ghost of his father, jumped a mile when the ghost of her own father appeared before her, ruffled and left in an ill-mood by the journey.

**♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔**

“Sir,” Moist said as he stood to his feet from his desk, coming out from behind it. He had his _own_ office, now, from which he managed the Royal Mint and the Post Office at once: he was now, after all, Guild President for the Merchants’ Guild, and he tended to everything from here, now. It meant he went to guild meetings at the Palace, for one thing, but—

It wasn’t often that Vetinari came to his office, let alone without any weird dramatics.

“I have just come from the Unseen University,” Vetinari said smoothly, loosely clasping his hands over his chest and raising his chin slightly. “Mr Stibbons believes he has discovered some of the basic elements to this spell. So long as the eldest in a line has been infected, it is the eldest that carries the ghost. However, this applies to the eldest _son_ over any daughters. There is no harm in the ghost, I am told.”

“Well, that’s good,” Moist said. “No one’s panicking, at least. In the city, I mean… Do they know how it’s passed along?”

“Through touch,” Vetinari answered. “Not skin-to-skin contact, but merely touch. Even brushing shoulders with someone else, or passing too close and touching someone as one passes them in the street…” Vetinari was staring into the middle distance, his expression utterly inscrutable, but Moist, who was one of the more accustomed to Vetinari’s trains of thought in the city, leaned forward.

“Did someone touch you?” Moist asked, after a moment’s pause.

“Indeed,” Vetinari said.

Moist hesitated. “Did someone touch _you_?”

“It is too soon to be certain,” Vetinari said airily, gesturing with one hand. “But I believe I carry the spell, yes.”

Moist leaned forward. “I don’t suppose that I could…?”

“You _want_ to be infected?” Vetinari asked, arching an eyebrow.

“My dad died when I was a little boy,” Moist said. “Shouldn’t I want to? If the wizards don’t think it’s harmful—”

“Not _yet_ ,” Vetinari reminded him. “But it might _become_ so, Mr Lipwig.”

“Well, if you have it, I should have it,” Moist said.

The dreaded eyebrow raised higher. “ _Oh_?”

“Please?” Moist asked, and for a long moment, he thought Vetinari would refuse, but then the Patrician stepped forward, and put his hand on Moist’s shoulder. It wasn’t a long touch, just a brush of his palm against the side of the golden suit, and Moist said, “Is your father…?”

“Dead? Yes.”

“No!” Moist said. “Is he… You know, not good?”

“I have fond memories of my father,” Vetinari said, with a delicate shrug of his shoulders. “I know not yet how I ought feel about his ghost.”

“You just look upset. That’s all.”

“Do I, Mr Lipwig?” Vetinari asked archly, his eyes cold, flashing with promises of Cedric the Head Torturer, and his kittens. “Do I look _upset_?”

Moist coughed, and turned his head. “No, sir,” he said. “Not at all.”

“I would ask that you continue keeping a sense of calm, particularly with the other guild heads, and indeed, with the merchants,” Vetinari murmured. “The wizards will be continuing with their experiments for now – I am told the spell doesn’t carry outside of the city, and that according to Hex, it might be traced back to some sort of artefact, but what sort of artefact, they cannot know.”

“How long can it take to trace an artefact?” Moist asked, with a winning smile. Vetinari did not smile, and as he turned on his heel to go, Moist sighed, slumping back against his desk.

He had been raised by his grandfather, since he was nine. He had vague memories of his father as a bright, cheerful man, always running back and forth, and being a bit sneaky – he’d taught Moist to pickpocket, and how to pick locks, until he’d died when Moist was six or seven, in a cart accident on the way through Llamedos. His mother had died a few years later, from Quirmian Grip[2], and he’d had to move to the other side of Schmaltzburg to live with his grandfather and his dogs.

He remembered him as a sort of streak of red and orange, always laughing, smiling… He remembered snatches of little songs, or the particular way he’d put his finger over his lips and hush Moist when they were playing a game together, hiding from his mother. And he remembered her better, but that almost made it more painful, because he remembered her in her sickbed, her long, dark hair, which had always had a streak of white in it since she’d fell out of a tree as a little girl, lank and lifeless around her shoulders. She’d been square where his father had been round, he thought, and a little bit taller than him. She’d had a photographic memory, and he used to enjoy playing a game of removing items from a tray, and delighting when she was never wrong, not ever.

It wasn’t the same, it wouldn’t be the same, but—

But what would he be like?

**♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔**

Vetinari was very quiet as he sat in the back of his coach. There were parts of him that jumped with joy at the prospect of seeing his father again. Madam had often spoken of him, of her brother Vincenzo, and she always praised him – though always with the dark footnote that he ought have been more careful. She’d been distraught when he died, Vetinari remembered, and although she’d done her best to hide it, she’d shown it more than he had himself.

His father…

But how could he feel joy, excitement, at the prospect of seeing his father again when so many others were suffering as a result of the same strange spell? There were no doubt others like young Vigorous Reising across the city, flinching away from the ghosts of their fathers. People like William de Worde, whose fathers were cold and distant and demanding and cruel; people like Drumknott and Nobby Nobbs, whose fathers beat them and called them every name under the sun. People who had never known their fathers, or had known them only enough to know they ought hide from them.

How could he take pleasure in something that would, that was already, causing so many others to suffer?

He wouldn’t have chosen to take it on. Not like Lipwig had, he would never have asked—

He exhaled as he stepped down from the coach, moving through the corridors, and he stood in the corridor outside of Drumknott’s office, watching him. He was very concentrated, his brow tightly furrowed as he looked between several documents, making notes in neat, easy shorthand, but he relaxed when he heard Vetinari’s step in the corridor, and looked up at him, standing to his feet.

“My lord,” he said, smiling, “I—”

“Don’t touch me,” Vetinari said cleanly, and Drumknott stopped in his place, freezing. Hurt passed over his features, leaning back, and Vetinari said, “Mr Stibbons believes the spell is transferred via touch. I have said that he ought have something in the evening edition of the _Ankh-Morpork Times_ tonight, that it be easier for individuals to avoid, if they need to.”

“By touch,” Drumknott repeated, looking down to Vetinari’s chest. “You are infected, then?”

“Stibbons touched me. His father is still alive, but people still carry the spell, he thinks, even if its effects are unactivated.”

Drumknott’s expression was utterly frozen. “I see,” he said, finally, and then he slowly moved to sit down again behind his desk. His hands spread on the wooden surface, his gaze forward, and the guilt burned in Vetinari’s chest. “I’ll sleep in my bedroom tonight, then, instead of yours.”

Drumknott’s bedroom. Vetinari had not even considered it, and yet, it was obvious: they could hardly sleep in a narrow bed together, side-by-side, if Vetinari might infect him. “It doesn’t affect those that are outside of the city’s walls,” Vetinari said delicately, “again, I might suggest—”

“Will that be all, my lord?” Drumknott asked cleanly, cutting through him before he could finish the sentence. He might be angry, were it not for the way that Drumknott’s voice quavered, or the fact that he could see the tremor in his fingers where they were spread on the desk.

“Yes, Drumknott,” Vetinari murmured, feeling hollow. Any joy he might have felt dissipated into the ether. “That will be all.”

**♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔**

As Vetinari paced the bedroom he’d shared with his clerk for some seventeen years – _your_ bedroom, Drumknott had called it, _your_ bedroom, was it not _our_ bedroom? Was it not theirs, shared, together? – that night, Mr Fusspot weaved anxiously between his feet, confused and uncertain.

He didn’t sleep.

He couldn’t, without Drumknott’s quietly reassuring breath beside him, without the sensation of his heartbeat, without the cool weight of his body. Without Drumknott, Vetinari _roasted_ , even laying on top of his bedsheets, wearing scarcely anything at all.

It was too _hot_.

And as for Drumknott, two corridors away—

For over fifteen years, now, he had spent every night in Vetinari’s bed, the two of them settled on a narrow mattress with the dog between them, entangled with one another. Drumknott always slept for longer than Vetinari did, but that didn’t matter: he would lie in the bed with him, would radiate the warmth Drumknott so adored, his body strong and scarcely moving.

In sleep, Vetinari tended to reach out, to _grab_ for him, to haul Drumknott tightly against him and cling onto him, one leg hooking about Drumknott’s own, or his arm tightening over Drumknott’s chest, his fingers tangling in his hair.

Drumknott lay in the dark, cold, unable to sleep, and remembered being eight years old and doing the same thing, night after night.

**♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔**

The next morning, Humphrey Downey, who had spent the last week or so in anxious anticipation, awoke to the figure at his bedside. Friendless Downey[3], a rather thin, reedy looking man with a slight squint, leaned forward in his seat, his transparent, blue-sheened shoes, which were well-worn with extensive broguing on the toes, against the ground.

It had felt very strange, the past week or so, slowly coming into being. It felt, Friendless would later explain, like slowly waking from a very long, deep sleep. One slowly came into vague consciousness, sounds and light seeping in through that cloudy haze of torpor, and then one was awake, full to the brim with energy.

Downey sat up in his bed, throwing back the sheet and leaning forward. He was wearing some of his nicest pyjamas, a deep and luxuriant purple – a gift, some Hogswatches past, from Mrs Palm. He’d bought her, the same year, a pair of red leather shoes she still wore. It was nice, he felt, when one could settle into gifts for one another and use them over the years.

It had taken him ages to get to sleep.

He’d stared at the filmy, uncertain figure hovering beside his bed, and he’d been so frightened and excited and _anticipant_ he’d tossed and turned under his sheets, before falling fitfully asleep, and now—

“Humphrey?” asked Friendless, all but bouncing in his seat.

“ _Daddy **[4]**_ ,” Downey breathed out, and he wished he could hug the man, wished he could hug his father for the first time in _fifteen years_ , it had been so long, since he’d been able to hug him, or his mother, and it _ached_ , to see him, now. He looked just like Downey remembered him: little and prim and neatly put together, the very definition of _trim_ , but wrapped in wool and soft tweed and _comfort_. He inhaled, and he smelled the familiar scent of his father even if he couldn’t touch him: the lingering scent of the wax factory and the awful cologne he only wore because Mummy liked it and the _tobacco_ , and he’d even gone to the tobacconist, a year or so after he’d died, but it hadn’t been the same. “Oh, it _is_ you—”

“Humphrey!” Friendless said, and he reached out, but his fingers only brushed through Downey’s shoulder, and he saw the man frustratedly rock on his heels. “Oh, my boy, my boy… How long has it been?”

“How long does it feel like?”

“I don’t know,” Friendless said softly. “I don’t know… I remember the pneumonia! Awful, it felt at the end, just awful, like I was drowning, but I don’t feel anything so dreadful at all, now.”

“You died fifteen years ago, Daddy,” Downey said. “And Mummy died six months after, she was so upset. She never stopped wearing mourning black, you know, she couldn’t bear to.”

Friendless’ thin eyebrows shifted, furrowing down. “I told her to remarry!”

“Yes, Daddy, but she didn’t want to,” Downey said softly.

“She always liked that John Ferryman the foreman,” Friendless said anxiously, “he would have jumped at the chance to marry her.”

“Yes, she said that, Daddy, but she said he would have taken too much space in bed with her and that his nose was too square, and she didn’t want John Ferryman the foreman, she wanted _you_.” Downey remembered it, too. Mummy’d been so fond, telling him how he’d tried to convince her to remarry, even while he was lying in his sickbed, and she’d just said, “Yes, dear, of course I will,” and then…

“Oh,” said Friendless. He had always been, by nature, very eager to make others happy, but the idea that anybody might prefer him over an alternative had always given him some difficulty, particularly when it came to the late Deidre Downey, née Ricotti. Deidre, Friendless had always thought, was a sort of goddess of love that had been sent down from the heavens to make life worth living: Deidre had really thought of herself more as a sort of ordinary woman with rather ordinary features, and never really had especial want or ambition for more, but had been spellbound by Friendless’ adoration for her.

They’d been soulmates, Downey had thought. He did think the term was overused, but with his parents, he _did_ think that they were. He’d always wanted something like that for himself, so that he could be as happy as they had been, but it had never worked out that way…

And he was happy.

He had the guild, and the school, and all of the students were so good, he could have that, he had that. He had friends, he had work, he was _happy_ , and that sort of relationship didn’t just spring from the ether fully-formed.

“Fifteen years,” Friendless said softly, staring at his son and feeling a dreadful ache in his chest. “Oh, Humphrey, you must tell me everything that’s happened! How’s the Patrician?”

“Oh, _Daddy_ ,” Humphrey said. “Hush.”

“What? A man can’t ask? A man can’t ask about his son’s—”

“The Patrician, I’m informed, is _quite well_ , Daddy, but it’s really none of my business.”

“Oh, but you used to talk so much about him when you came home from school, Vetinari this and Vetinari that—”

“Daddy, be quiet!”

“I’ve been quiet for fifteen years!”

And just like that, the laughter and the tears came at once, desperate relief that shocked through Downey’s whole body, and again, he _wished_ , he wished he could just _touch_ the other man’s ghost. “ _Daddy!”_

“Well, I have!”

And it was like fifteen years had never passed, like it was just back to normal, and they both talked and talked with tears in their eyes.

**♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔** **☩** **♔**

“You look like shit,” Vimes said the next morning, when he came in for his morning meeting with the Patrician. Vetinari had slight shadows under his eyes, and there was a third shadow, too, hovering beside the window. He’d been infected, then. Vimes hadn’t been, not yet, but… He would be, he expected. He didn’t know if he was looking forward to it or not. There was a very long, slow moment of silence, and Vimes thought about the business with the goblins and the snuff last year…

“I didn’t sleep,” Vetinari admitted.

“Thought you said your dad was alright?” Vimes asked, watching the other man as he slowly sat down in the chair across from his desk, leaning back in it, and Vetinari reached up, touching his fingers against his lip.

“He was,” Vetinari murmured. “But—”

He glanced to Vimes, as if taking in the measure of him, and then said, “But I mentioned to you, about Mr Drumknott’s father.”

“Yes,” Vimes said, slowly.

“You are… _aware_ ,” Vetinari said slowly, “about the nature of our relationship.”

“He’s a very good clerk,” Vimes said.

Vetinari stared at him. “Yes,” he agreed. “He— _is_ a very good clerk. But… more than that…?”

Vimes felt like he was drowning in bafflement. Drumknott. Drumknott, who was good with Young Sam – he was a funny man, a weird one, but he liked trains, he liked work, he liked… stationery… What else did he like? What was there that he and Vetinari had in common?

“Sybil’s never mentioned…?” Once more, somewhat desperately, Vetinari trailed off.

“He won’t drink tea with you,” Vimes said. “He insists on sitting in the side chamber.”

“Yes,” Vetinari said. “But— But, Drumknott and I. _Drumknott and I_ , Vimes.”

“Drumknott and you,” Vimes repeated, without understanding.

“Like— Sybil and yourself, Vimes,” Vetinari said, his tone slightly tight.

“Sybil and _me_?”

“Yes! We’re like Sybil and you.”

“No, you’re not! Which one of you is meant to be Sybil!?” He was growing frustrated with the conversation, feeling his voice rise, but to his surprise, the Patrician was matching him ounce for ounce in terms of irritable tension.

“ _Neither_ of us is meant to be Sybil!” he snapped.

“Then how are the two of you like the two of us?”

“You utter simpleton, Vimes! _We’re lovers!”_ Vetinari hissed the last word, and Vimes felt his jaw drop open as he stared at the Patrician. His eyes felt very wide, and he wondered what he looked like, in this moment, looking at Vetinari’s frustrated, exhausted expression. He leaned back and away from Vimes, putting two thin, blue-veined fingers over his lips.

“Oh,” Vimes said.

“I couldn’t sleep last night,” Vetinari said slowly, his cheeks tinged slightly dark, “because I had to sleep alone.”

“ _Oh_ ,” Vimes said.

“To which I am not accustomed.”

“Oh.”

“And I found it— Stressful.”

“Oh.”

“Are you capable of saying anything else?”

“Er—” Vimes floundered, trying to stop his brain from connecting together several dozen hundred clues and implications and strange thoughts that had accumulated over the years, and never quite crystalised into concrete understanding. Sybil had mentioned it before, actually. He’d just thought she meant the _job_ , he’d never… But then, you didn’t say, “ _You know, I don’t think he even thinks about other men when young Drumknott is in the room,”_ about a man and his clerk, did you? He’d just thought he was a _very_ good clerk, which everyone said that he was. “That must be hard,” he said faintly. “You can’t—”

He can’t touch him.

Vimes imagined it. Tried to force away the baffled explosions of comprehension spattering off the insides of his skull, forced one thread of rational consideration through, and considered not touching Sybil, not even being able to lie in bed with her.

“Yes,” Vetinari said quietly, leaning back on the desk and closing his eyes for just a moment. “Yes.” He looked smaller and more exhausted than he ever had before. They’d known one another for a long time, now, had worked together for nearly twenty-five years, and yet having seen him injured, ill, poisoned, in a coma, having seen all that, Vetinari looked small… _now_.

Vimes reached out, and he touched his hand against Vetinari’s upper arm, feeling the surprising stiffness of muscle under the drab, dusty robe. Vetinari’s eyes opened, and he looked at Vimes in some surprise, but Vimes felt some of the tension eke out from his shoulder.

“You’ll be infected, now,” Vetinari said quietly.

“It was going to happen sooner or later,” Vimes murmured. “The Watch have a kitty together to send Nobby to Pseudopolis until it all blows over.”

“My aunt will take him,” Vetinari said, after a moment’s pause. “She has a great fondness for Corporal Nobbs, as I’m sure you recall.”

“She won’t want to come here?” Vimes asked, nodding to the dark shadow, and Vetinari inhaled, slowly, then gave a small shrug of his shoulders. Vimes drew his hand away, and he stepped back toward the other seat, feeling—

“I doubt it,” Vetinari murmured. “Come. About your paperwork.”

“Right,” Vimes said, slowly. “Right.”

Vetinari and Drumknott…

That.

That was… news.

 

[1] As one might surmise from the traditional family naming conventions, the Reising ancestors had had a great deal of humour, which the father of Vigorously and Steadily had most certainly not inherited. Often Early, who had been the eldest of four brothers (who were named Expeditious, Untimely, and Rather Late, respectively) only ever laughed in a sort of nasty, mocking way, and felt that humour was a sort of unmentionable disease.

[2] A nasty disease characterised by pink, mottled marks that appeared on the throat in the shape of a choking hand, not to be confused with Quirmian Grippe, which was a cold with delusions of grandeur.

[3] His father had told him, as he was growing up, that the reason for his name had been the fact of his father’s terrible handwriting: in fact, it was a practical joke intended for his mother, who – not unexpectedly – did not find it funny whatsoever.

[4] Downey, at fifty-seven years old, had no shame whatsoever about referring to his parents as Mummy and Daddy, regardless of how long ago they died, or how old he was himself. Some years ago, having entered one of the sixth year dormitories to have the boys and girls quieten down some, the children – at that age, each of them sixteen or seventeen – had been joking back and forth with one another, jokingly referring to one another as _Daddy Downey_.  
When they had noticed their headmaster in attendance, and each of them shocked and jumped in their place, he had smoothly said, “Please, children, Daddy was my father. Call me Dad.”  
Some of them still did.

**Author's Note:**

> Hit me up [on Dreamwidth](https://dictionarywrites.dreamwidth.org/2287.html). You can send requests [on Tumblr](http://patricianandclerk.tumblr.com/ask), too. Requests always open.
> 
> Please, please remember to comment and let me know what you think!


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